BASSETERRE, St. Kitts, March 22, 2018 (Press Unit in the Office of the Prime Minister) – Citizens and residents of St. Kitts and Nevis were shocked to learn on Wednesday, March 21, 2018, of the dirty political tactics reportedly orchestrated by the now Opposition St. Kitts and Nevis Labour Party during the lead up to the 2010 and 2015 General Elections.
News broke on Wednesday via the international media that Cambridge Analytica, an affiliate of Strategic Communication Laboratories Group (SCL), was allegedly employed by the Labour Party to target and entrap then People’s Action Movement leader, Lindsay Grant, ahead of the 2010 election in St. Kitts and Nevis aiming to undermine his candidacy against the Labour Party.
While disappointed, Senior Minister the Honourable Vance Amory was not surprised by the low-level political actions allegedly employed by the former Dr. Denzil Douglas Administration.
Speaking at the Team Unity Town Hall Meeting at the St. Paul’s Community Centre, Minister Amory said, “What we saw up to 2015 in this country was what I called when I wrote to the Commonwealth Office [and] wrote to governments in the Caribbean advising them that we are seeing a creeping dictatorship in St. Kitts and Nevis.”
Senior Minister Amory, then leader of the Concerned Citizens Movement (CCM), added, “I wrote it…because it was of great concern that we had a Labour Party Government at that time doing everything and anything to retain itself in government.”
Prime Minister Dr. the Honourable Timothy Harris revealed that he too was a victim of the devious tactics allegedly orchestrated by the Labour Party, whereby hackers accessed his personal information including his emails.
An excerpt from a Guardian Newspaper article, dated Wednesday, 21 March, 2018, states, “In a second episode in early 2015, sources said the same Israeli team that had worked on the Nigeria campaign obtained private information of the St Kitts and Nevis Politician Timothy Harris. At the time he was an opposition leader, and is now prime minister.”
In response, Dr. Harris told the large gathering at Wednesday’s town hall meeting that this represents a clear breach of his privacy.
The prime minister further stated that, “I am happy that God is good because…despite going to those extremes, despite all the money he had and he boasts about, despite all the music he brought, despite the 4,000 people he put on PEP and forced to go to every public meeting, Douglas gone in.”
Cambridge Analytica is currently embroiled in a recent Facebook data scandal over the access it reportedly gained to private information of more than 50 million Facebook users.
